Re: [Marxism] On Nuclear Power: France and Germany

[dave.walters@xxxxxxxxxxx]

I?ve been sort of proscribed from talking about nuclear energy, even after 
Louis 
completely misrepresented my views on the issue?so I won?t here either. But I 
will respond 
to some if the issues that Shane raised in his response to me, sans nuclear.
 
The most important issue is ?The Grid? as Shane stated it. He wants society, 
under socialism or 
other system, perhaps, to get off ?The Grid?. The Grid rises it seems as an 
apparition of evil, the 
apogee of Bad-Tech, to be brought down by the masses for a simpler, perhaps 
pastoral lifestyle. 
Literary illusions aside, I think Shane is off his rocker on this one.
 
The electrical grid is one of the great accomplishments of humanity. It is what 
makes not just the 
Internet we are all using possible (itself a ?grid? of sorts) but powers the 
GOOD parts of 
industrial advancement: from transportation to electronics to medicine to 
education to food 
production. Remove the grid under the fanciful word of ?decentralization? and 
you get what you ask for: 
a new dark ages, latterly. No city can run with out a grid Shane. Water 
treatment, public 
transportation, real lighting and air conditioning, in effect, human 
civilization.
 
Even taking the radical reconstruction of consumer society along the 
interesting lines Joaquin suggested 
a few months ago requires a grid (just not a big one in Joaquin?s vision).
 
You view the grid as some sort of evil yet it never has been.  Only its private 
ownership, not 
the engineering behind it, is ?evil?. To think any significant number of people 
can live off the grid is not 
just utopian, in fact it is downright reactionary. See Africa. See Bangladesh. 
In a country like Brazil 
or Venezuela, over 50% of the population lives in dense cities. No doubt too 
many, but they are 
not being asked to resettle the countryside like some Western Eco-fantasy of 
the Cultural Revolution. 
The Venezuelan gov?t is correctly trying to upgrade their homes, provide 
electricity (cheaply) and 
give people a choice in where they want to live.
 
Shane you have it backwards, the grid is what makes socialism possible. Wind 
power (which is see 
more as a compound noun than an adjective describing a noun) cannot offer any 
modern society 
more than a small fraction of it as power?it does NOT blow all the time?of 
course, as you state, 
it blows someplace all the time?so?you?d need a grid, wouldn?t you, to wheel 
that power where 
the wind doesn?t blow, don? you?  The reality is that it is of only limited 
use, has it?s own 
environmental issues that at best it could only account for about 20% of a 
country?s grid (and only with 
a HUGE grid to wheel the power around where it?s needed) and with EVERY 
megawatt of wind 
you need at least that much in fossil?or some other on demand power?to make op 
for the only 
30% average capacity wind can provide at any one time.
 
Solar is more reliable, more expensive, and has the same issues with storing 
the power when the sun 
goes down, and often, when the highest load of the day exists. Can it be 
supplemental? Absolutely. 
Can we live on it alone? See Africa, See Bangladesh.
 
David________________________________________________
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